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BillMinder 1.6 Approved (with Push!)
- Thread starter return7
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Okay, I just purchased the older version. Knock my socks off. Think this'll be better than NotifyMe, which is great itself?
Hey guys, thanks for the interest. BillMinder 1.6 itself is a free upgrade, so users of 1.5 or older will get the calendar and autopay, as well as bug fixes for free. If you're purchasing BillMinder, it's on sale but slightly less on sale at $1.99. The 99c price for the app itself was a short term sale just for MR. Push notifications are a little extra at 99c per year to help cover our server costs. Does that help? Oh, we have a FAQ on our Push implementation here to help you decide: http://forums.return7.com/index.php?topic=249.0
12 PM EST, once per day. We didn't think it made sense to update folks more than that, but if we find it's necessary, it's easy for us to change (we started out trying to do it about 4-6 times a day but it was annoying to our testers).
Can you not do 12 pm local time? 12 pm est is 9 am for some ... some people may not even be awake then.
Is there a way to tell it to hit at 12 pm local time or does it have to be server time?
it is tough to make a setting to allow us to customize the time to be notified? and just to be clear, the notification currently comes in once a day at 12pm est, then will again notify everyday until it is paid? i would love to also control the notification intervals as well, like once in the morning, another in the afternoon or something... well i just want to know if they are possibilities in the future.
Can you not do 12 pm local time? 12 pm est is 9 am for some ... some people may not even be awake then.
Is there a way to tell it to hit at 12 pm local time or does it have to be server time?
Not currently -- it's 12PM server time. We'll try to make it based on the iPhone's local time instead in the next version b/c it makes sense. No promises on timeline (we're waiting on a designer to give us the mockups as we're going to redo BillMinder's UI and make it purty). It'll come along with that.
It's tough to make it arrive at a particular time, but not as tough to make it notify you at noon in a particular time zone. We might also be able to make it notify you at a particular hour of the day (e.g. 5PM). We'll discuss this as well.
You are notified only if you have new bills and once per bill, but bills you've already been notified about are tracked in a way that makes sure the badge icon is set properly. FAQ details what data we track -- basically the minimum data possible and it's sent over SSL so it's encrypted between the phone and server.
Found a minor bug. If you go into the Collectors setup and select 'Uncategorized' and try and change the color you will get a popup 'Whoops! There's already another category with that name.'. At that point you are stuck and the only way out is to close the app and then start it again.
Why would it be hard to have it send out based on a user's preferred hour? It should be as simple as having the server do a query on the database once an hour (using cron or something) (as an example, not exact. current_hour would be the current hour the server is running the check) assuming the database is sql like:
select * from reminders where reminders.date_due='todays date' and reminders.sent='N' and reminders.uuid in (select uuid from users where users.preferred_hour = 'current_hour');
- James
Why would it be hard to have it send out based on a user's preferred hour? It should be as simple as having the server do a query on the database once an hour (using cron or something) (as an example, not exact. current_hour would be the current hour the server is running the check) assuming the database is sql like:
select * from reminders where reminders.date_due='todays date' and reminders.sent='N' and reminders.uuid in (select uuid from users where users.preferred_hour = 'current_hour');
- James
Thanks for the info on the bug -- sorry for that. We'll get it fixed.
Preferred hour = same as per phone's time zone.. not so hard at all (just check 24 times a day, etc.). Preferred TIME (e.g. 5:23PM) is more difficult but ultimately could just be a task that ran pretty frequently. The SQL's no where near that trivial due to things like autopay, what bills have been notified, etc. Anyway thanks a ton for the feedback.
Edit: I suppose being exact isn't really a requirement so a selectable *hour* is probably best.
Can you not do 12 pm local time? 12 pm est is 9 am for some ... some people may not even be awake then.
Is there a way to tell it to hit at 12 pm local time or does it have to be server time?
and then there's others who are up at 4 a.m. every day.....
i haven't slept til 9 (or even 8 or 7 for YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!)
We hear ya. We'll get the pick-an-hour-to-be-notified stuff in the next update. Thanks for the feedback!
Great update! Love the calendar view and signed up for push notifications. Haven't had to pay a bill yet, but will post again once I receive first push reminder!
Thanks again for this great application!
Thanks again for this great application!
Hi guys, sorry to bump this but I wanted to let you know that we'll be pushing a minor update with some bug fixes as well as the ability to specify the time you want to be notified. BillMinder will take your timezone into your account. We'll save the major UI changes until we get the art from our designer friend.
We'll save the major UI changes until we get the art from our designer friend.
Hi guys, sorry to bump this but I wanted to let you know that we'll be pushing a minor update with some bug fixes as well as the ability to specify the time you want to be notified. BillMinder will take your timezone into your account.
I just want to say i'm impress by this App, and this update will make it even better. The push worked great the 1st day it took effect, and I see myself using this the entirety of my iPhone contract. Very uselful and easy to use. For the grand total of 2 dollars Ive paid for this app, with push, easily one of the best/ most uselful apps Ive downloaded yet.
Keep up the great work!
It was tongue in cheek really but frankly I'd prefer to be notified around noon my time. You're on the west coast, it's 12 pm my time so I'm good with it never being updated. I couldn't care less who is awake in CA.
Thanks so much!
It was tongue in cheek really but frankly I'd prefer to be notified around noon my time. You're on the west coast, it's 12 pm my time so I'm good with it never being updated. I couldn't care less who is awake in CA.
Maybe so but some folks are in Australia and it would be 2AM there so you were right!
Edit: We've had a _few_ users report the app crashing and not opening after upgrading to 1.6. This is not a common problem. We're working to fix it. In the mean time, please do use the backup feature just in case.
It was tongue in cheek really but frankly I'd prefer to be notified around noon my time. You're on the west coast, it's 12 pm my time so I'm good with it never being updated. I couldn't care less who is awake in CA.
My first push notification from BillMinder came on Saturday at 9am, effectively waking me up...
Since then I turned push notification of. Please make the option to choose when to be notified soon.
My first push notification from BillMinder came on Saturday at 9am, effectively waking me up...
Since then I turned push notification of. Please make the option to choose when to be notified soon.
Absolutely. This will be in the next version.